Personally, your humble pundit deplores stances such as these,

Sen. John McCain joined the ranks of retired generals who have said they have no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Or more precisely, the generals are falling in line with McCain’s long-standing assessment, McCain said Friday.

“I was asked a long time ago, I think a year and a half or two years ago, if I had confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. I was asked that directly. I said, ‘No,’ ” the Republican senator said during a news conference at his Phoenix office.

“But the president has the right and earned the right as the president of the United States to appoint his team — and he has confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld.

“I will continue to work with Secretary Rumsfeld as much as I can as long as he is secretary of Defense. We have to, because we need to win this war.”

If Senator McCain truly embraces his second tenet - “But the president has the right and earned the right as the president of the United States to appoint his team-and he has confidence - then he would not castigate Secretary Rumsfeld and, thereby, erode the confidence President Bush has with him.

With the combination of the aforementioned tenets, Sen. McCain essentially erodes what he professes to believe. Further, as a soldier from the Vietnam war, should not Sen. McCain understand better than most all of us the infusion of politics and rhetoric into campaigns of war?

But, that is just it, is it not, Sen. McCain has already launched his own campaign.

(Hat Tip - The Moderate Voice)